The governor -- who has made himself the face of an American austerity push that uses the fantasy of "shared sacrfice" to redistribute wealth upward -- went to Springfield, Illinois, two weeks ago to tell the state's business leaders that their state should do it his way. Walker's argument was that Illinois was getting everything wrong and that Wisconsin was getting everything right when it came to encouraging job creation.

As he has for the past year in Florida, Arizona, Texas, California and other states, Walker was trying to export his approach to governing (and to pick up lots of campaign money): attacks on public employees, deep cuts in education and training, the undermining of public services and the rejection of federal support for transportation and broadband Internet development.